— ^shma
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
^sop
iESHMA (ASMODEUS, ASHMEDAI)
In the Miizdiiiii nliixion the cliicf of the dti'vas, or (lemons. Though the oldest sections of the AvESTA present /Eslinin mniuly as an abstract the Gathiis conception, still, in passages here and there, he is represented in the guise of a personal being ninging among the evil spirits that obey Angromainyusli. In the later portions of the Avesta llie personal character connoted by the name admits of no doubt. yEshma is an enemy of Snioseha, )ne of the good «Eshangels that serve Ahurama/.da. His Func- ma's design is directed preeminently toward imbuing the hearts of men tion. with anger and revenge. Indeed, all the evil in the world is occasioned through his agency; he fortifies men in the pursuit of evil and seeks to keep them from entering the path of right eousness. Whether ^shma, like the Jewish Asmodeus in the Book of Tobit, or the Asiimed.m of the Talmud, was, as a demon, specially characterized by carnal Against such a supdesire can not be determined. ]Kisition the fact may be adduced that the Mazdian religion embruci's another demon, Azi, who, as exIt is. pressly staled, is the demon of carnal desire. however, conceivable that jEsluna may have had the .same part assigned to him in the popular beliefs of the Persians, although the literary .sources conlain nothing to support the conjecture. The etymology of the word "^Eshnia" all'ords no jiossibility of arriving at any such conclusion. Etymology It is true that " »Eshma" is connected of with the verb inh, denoting "to dethe Word, sire," "to lust after; but the abstract sense, "anger," that lies in the word "^Eshma" in the Gathas, would seem to point to of referring the word to the same verb the necessity " ish " in its sense of " to throw," " to put in motion " (compare Justi's note to Baudissin's article "Asmodi," in Ilauck's "Realcucyklopildie "). Though " ^Eshma " does not occur in the Avesta in conjunction with "da'va,"it is probable that a fuller form, such as " .Eshmo-da'us," has existed, .since it is " paralleled by the later Pahlavi-form "Khashm-dev (" Khashm dev "= " xEshma dev "), written with the Aramaic "sheda,"but pronounced "dev." Corresponding to this form are Wniioi^am^ (Asmodeus) of the Bookof Tobit, and 'NnOfX in the Talmud for the last-named word is not to be derived from "shemad." In fine, Asmodeus (Ashmedai) embodies an expression of the iuHuence that the Persian religion or Persian popular Ijeliefs have exercised on the Jewish an inttuence that shows itself very prominently in the domain of demonology. Thus 'Aa/ia, 'Dt'X. corresponds to "^Eshma," and the ending rfaiof, <XT, to "dsBva," "dev." Apart from this etj'mological coincidence which, as is now generally agreed, has its basis in the fact that the Jewish word is borrowed from the Persian Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit and Ashmedai in the Talmud bear no very great similarity to their Persian parallel, as Kohut, for instance, has sought to All three are evil. render plausible. Asmodeus harmfil demons, though in different in the Book degrees; the worst of the three being of undoubtedly the Persian .Eshma. The Tobit. Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit is attracted by Sarah, Haguel's daughter, and is not willing to let any luisband possess her (Tol)it. vi. 13); hence he slays seven successive husIiands on their wedding-nights. When the young
—
—
—
—
Tobias
is
about to marry her, Asmodeus purposes
the sjime fate for him but Tobias is enabled, through the counsels of his attendant angel Raphael, to ren;
220
innocuous. By placing a fish's heart and on red-hot cinders, 'Tobias ]>roduces a smoky vapor which causes the demon to lice to Egypt,
der
liiin
liver
whcr<' Rai>hael binds
him
(viii.
2,
- S),
Asmodeus
be a demon characterized by but he is also described as an evil
would thus seem carnal desire; spirit in genenil
to
'AG/iofialo^ to rrox't/pov ()at^6viov
To i)iufi6vtnv —tiviif}M
and
~vtvfia iiKtidapTov
(iii.
8,
or
17;
vi. 13; viii. 3). It is possible, moreover, that the statement (vi. 14), "Asmodeus loved Sarah," implies that he was attracted not by women in genend, but by Sarah only. This general designation of an evil spirit tallies with the ileseripti(m of yEshma in the Bundchesh
(xxviii.
1.5 ct
seq.):
"Seven powers are
may utterly destroy the creatures therewith: with .ffishma. those seven powers he will destroy seven of the Kayan heroes in his own time; but one will remain. There where Mitokht Special Office of
given .Eshm that he
["Falsehood "J arrives, Arask ["Malice"] becomes welcome; [and there where Arask is welcome] .Eshm lays a fmmdation; ami there where /Eshm has a foiuidation many creatures perish, and he causes much noM-Iranianism. ..Eshm mostly contrives all evil for the creatures of .Vuhramazd, and the evil deeds of those Kayan heroes have been more complete through /Eshm, as it says that ^Eshm. the impetuous as.sailant, causes them most" (E.W. West, "Sacred Booksof the East, "by F. :MaxMiiller,v. 108). Less harmful incharaetertlian .Kshnia an<l -Asmodeus is the figure of Aslimedai in the Talmuil: he appears there re)>eatedly in the light of a goodnatured and humorous fellow. But bcsiiles that, there is one feature in which he parallels .Vsmodens, inasmuch as his desires turn upon Solomon's wives and Bath-sheba. Thu.s, while Asmodeus resembles ^Eshma-dicva with tolerable^ closeness, Ashmedai, on the contrary, woidd .seem to come into direct comparison with a (Jreek satyr rather than with an evil demon. The historieal element, however, that identifies him with Asmodi'Us on the one hand, and both with their Persian parallels on the other, is by no means to l)e ignored. Besides, if the .Jews have merely borrowed the name from the ^Eshma-da'vaof Par.seeism, and have developed, independently, the idea of a demon corresponding to the name, it merely shows that the .lews shaped on lines of their own the materials they had borrowed from their neighbors. However, it is not impossible that /Eshma-cheva, too, may have had other (jualities analogous, point for point, to those of Asmodeus and .shmedai. It is probable that the belief in the existence of a number of Beliefs on larnally minded and lascivious spirJudaism. its, which was prevalent among the Parsees as among other peoples with whom the people of Israel came in contact, exercised an infiuence not merely on the Hebrew conceptions of an .Vsmodens or .Vshmeclai, but also on Jewish ideas in general with regard to the qualities of evil spirits. In later Judaism there may be observed an extensive evolution of the conceptions that are jiresent by intimation in the mythological n'miniseence found in Gen. vi. 1 et xii/. This evolution would seem, in any case, to have been advanced by the views spread by foreign religions. Xot the least was the influence of Parseeism. To what extent this influence made it.self felt among the Jews of later times, it is of course impossible to determine from the more presence of Asmodeus in the Book But this of Tobit or of Ashmedai in the Talmud. occurrence indicates one of the channels through which the influence of foreign religions found its
Influence of Persian
